This little idea came to me when I decided to distract myself from, you know, real work. And, thanks to a recent discovery, this just might be AU (thanks, wiki). Anyway, it was fun to write and I wrote it mostly because I like exploring the darker side of things. Enjoy!
Across the barren gray sands and ash, under an orange sky mottled with clouds of harsh smoke, a lone Time Lady walked on. Her skin bore the scars of battle, her dark hair lank about her shoulders, her usually pristine councilor's robes discarded in favor of a simple drab uniform. Around her lay the still-burning rubbish piles that had once been houses and vehicles and the charred remains of gardens. Here and there, she could see blades of red grass protruding from the blackened ground, brittle and gray now, and delicate.
She was forced to look away, flooded by the memories of her life before the war and the path that had led her here.
Susan stood, silent and solemn, under a clear sky. Before her feet lay a simple stone grave and on the grave were etched the words:
David Campbell
Loving husband and father
He will be missed
2151-2207
He had been human, his life but the blink of an eye in the larger span of things. Susan would outlive him a hundred times over. The pain she felt at his passing would fade and she would live on.
At the time, she hadn't wanted it to fade, had never wanted to forget her dear husband, the only man for whom she had finally given up her travels with the Doctor. The memory brought forth a bittersweet smile. She had been so torn up about leaving her grandfather and Barbara and Ian, yet she did not want to leave David; leave it up to the Doctor to make that decision for her.
Another shadow loomed over the grave beside her own and she turned to find a man behind her, the evening sun stretching their shadows long upon the ground. He was tall and clad in robes she recognized from her childhood on Gallifrey. She stiffened, on the alert, waiting for him to speak.
"Susan Foreman?" the man said.
"Susan Campbell," Susan corrected him.
The man nodded. "We have been searching for you for a while now, Susan, scanning the time streams."
Susan turned back to gaze at the grave of her husband. "I'm flattered, but you needn't have bothered."
"Gallifrey needs you," he stated bluntly.
Susan gave a short bark of unamused laughter. "Gallifrey needs the granddaughter of their most famous renegade?"
"Yes."
"Well you can tell them no," Susan said. "I do not wish to return to Gallifrey."
"You will live out your life on this planet?"
"I don't know. Maybe, maybe not. It is really not your business."
"There are dark times ahead for Gallifrey," the man said.
Susan hesitated. She remembered her home fondly, remembered cool nights where she could see the stars and the moons, and watch the striking image of a bright orange sunrise. It all seemed so long ago.
"I am sorry but I cannot help you," she said.
"Time is running out for us. I will return."
Susan nodded absentmindedly and knew by the silence that followed that he had left.
The sounds of explosions rent the air and Susan flinched, instinctively ducking low as fighters zoomed past overhead, disappearing into the smoke. Another explosion rocked the very earth and lit up the darkened sky with fire. Moments later, a sleek vessel fell from the sky and plowed into a nearby building, sending rubble and clouds of dust billowing into the air.
Susan shielded her eyes, but the dust made its way into them and stung, and she coughed. Trying hard to see through it all, she started for the wreckage, intent on searching it for survivors but the fighter was already burning and seconds later, a second explosion ripped through the air and she knew no one could possibly have survived it.
High over her head, the Daleks flew by, their work here done.
She found herself clenching her fists, angry at what they had done to her planet and to her people.
Huddling in the shadow of a building that had long burned itself out, she pulled the dusty pack from her back and took a swig of warm water. The air was hot, more like that of a desert than a city on the edge of the woods. Sweat coated her face and arms. She took out a device, a metallic pad, and switched it on. It showed her a map of the surrounding area and her destination, a well-hidden base where many guards and a TARDIS awaited her. It was still several miles due east.
Sighing, she returned her things to the pack and readied herself to head out once more.
She was 709 years old. Not long after David's death, Susan had left that planet and she'd never looked back. She'd made her way deep into space, had traveled with smugglers and on freighters and navy vessels and she had seen so much.
The last two decades had been some of the greatest in her life. She had fallen in with friends, a group she trusted and whose enthusiasm for the unknown seemed so far removed from the reluctance of her first traveling companions, who had just wanted to get home.
In their time ship, no rival to a TARDIS, that was sure, they had seen such magnificent sights: the brilliant clouds of the Medusa Cascade, a star made of carbon so compressed it had become diamond, the inverted black hole of the Ancient Plethora, the technological wonder of the Second Sky.
There was no more war and aboard the Celestial Ship Agatha, she felt truly free, her memories of the past faded as memories do into the primordial haze.
The Agatha now drifted through space, lazily between the stars. In a nearly empty cargo hold, Susan now slumped against a wall, spent. Residual traces of regeneration energy dissipated into the air, a crackling gold and then it was gone. She could still feel herself settling into her new body; she did not even know what she looked like.
Susan let out a shaky breath, knowing with certainty now that she would survive, that the regeneration had given her something her old body had lacked: the means to fight off an alien virus that had taken the crew, her friends. After seeing the suddenness with which it had destroyed them, left them lying so still on this newly appointed ghost ship, she wished she had not.
Even as she sat on the floor in uncertainty and loneliness and fear, a voice spoke to her.
"Hello Susan."
Susan didn't look up and though it had been so long, she wasn't surprised. "You sound the same."
"I am the same," the visitor replied. "I met with you mere hours ago."
"It's been several hundred years."
"I know. Sometimes it takes that long to change one's mind."
Susan looked up then from the floor, but stayed huddled against the wall. Tears streaked her new face. "I suppose we Time Lords should consider ourselves fortunate for such a luxury." Her voice was bitter.
"You have reconsidered…?"
"I have thought about what you said. I won't go back with you."
"Dark times are coming, Susan. We need you."
"One more soul won't make a difference."
"But yours is special," the man said. "The Council has recognized the fact. Even Rassilon –"
"You have resurrected Rassilon?" For the first time, Susan showed an interest in the conversation. "Things must be pretty dire."
"They are. Please won't you help us?"
"No," Susan said, adamant. "I'll never go back. I am sorry."
"Very well," the man said, patient where Susan had expected frustration. "But I will return."
"I don't doubt it."
"Know this at least: the Visionary has looked into the future. Gallifrey will fall."
With that, the man left and Susan was again alone.
She'd been appointed several guards but they had been killed, all of them when the Daleks made their sweeping aerial attacks. Now she was on her own, trekking through the ruins on a mission and expecting it to be her last. She had to force herself to stop checking her map every few feet, anxious to see the force field dome low over the ground, protecting what was probably one of the very last TARDIS hangars on the planet. If she could make it there, she would be safe and her mission complete.
She traveled even as the sun set over the distant mountains, with no intention of resting for the night. She feared she might never awaken. Even so, the journey had taken its toll on her and she panted for every breath.
Night finally fell.
That's when the raids started again. Nonstop throughout the night, she heard the whistles of fighters low in the clouds and the explosions as they engaged the Daleks, heard their distant mechanical shouts and the horrible screech of metal as vessels fell from the sky. The night was not so dark, the explosions so bright that even in the distance, they allowed her plenty of light to see by, drowning out the stars. She had never really intended to return here and now she wondered if perhaps her initial stubbornness would have been the better course. Perhaps she should not have returned.
All around her, Gallifrey burned.
Susan watched a planet burn. She so wished she was there and would have preferred to burn with it than watch from this cold ship in orbit. She gritted her teeth, both from the anguish and from the sheer physical pain that wracked her aged body. Sweat soaked her white hair. Already she could feel the changes starting to kick in, the energy being released so that she could regenerate and live.
She willed it not to happen. She willed the radiation to burn her instead. For if she lived, the Daleks would have their prisoner, a Time Lady no less, and she could think of few worse things.
One wall of her cell contained a viewscreen and on it, the planet continued to burn. It was a planet she had finally returned to after centuries away, a small blue world she had called home in her youth not long after her grandfather had stolen a TARDIS and spirited her away.
The Time War had finally caught up with her, as she knew it must. Millions of years from its beginning and its end, for the Time War had ravaged all periods of time throughout the history of the universe.
The Daleks had attacked without mercy, slaughtering all and giving very little chance to escape. The battle for the planet had lasted two long years, the humans giving their all against impossible odds. Eventually, the Daleks had managed to harness the power of their own sun and turn it against them. The world was ravaged, its many magnificent cities razed to the ground.
Susan had fought alongside her adopted people long and hard. When the engineered solar flares penetrated the atmosphere, burning, irradiating, she had been pulled out while her comrades were left to die. She had been captured by the Daleks and now at their mercy.
Her eyes had long since dried as she watched the Earth burn.
"Hello Susan."
"That is not my true name," Susan replied.
"I know, but it suits you."
"I've changed a lot since your last visit."
"I'm sure."
Susan winced in pain, forced it aside. "You haven't."
"You know why I'm here."
"Gallifrey will fall."
"Yes."
A slow smile spread across Susan's weathered features, though it was devoid of humor. "You know, I barely remember what it looks like. It's like a childhood dream."
"You can see it again."
"Not as it was."
"No. But if you come with me, perhaps it will be again."
"You think it's possible?"
"I don't know," the man admitted. He gave no more explanation than that. Taking a few steps forward, he gazed at the image on the screen of the burning Earth and there was a profound sadness in his eyes.
Susan had had enough. She looked away and cringed as another wave of pain went through her. Golden energy began to flow from her fingertips but she clenched her hands against it.
The man noticed and turned his back to the screen.
"You're dying," he said.
Susan hissed through her teeth and that was all the answer he needed.
"Do not hold it in. You'll die."
"I don't care anymore," Susan said. "I've lived far too long. Maybe it's my time."
"Come with me," the man said. "Gallifrey needs you."
Susan shuddered. "This is my last regeneration."
The man knelt in front of her and put a comforting hand on her shoulder. She looked into his face, a kindly, aged face with eyes that had seen too much. "Don't die here."
Susan's eyes went back to the screen over his shoulder, to the burning planet. She breathed in a steady breath, exhaled. "Alright," she said. "I'll come."
"Thank you," the man said.
As he backed away to a safe distance, she finally let go, let the racing golden energies take her.
As the battle raged on, Susan ran across the sands, forgetting the ache in her lungs and in her legs, the heat of the fires warring with the coolness of the night. She could feel the distance between her and her destination closing with each stride and it sent her a renewed strength.
She had a mission to complete and she would not rest until she saw it through.
Susan watched the fighting on the screen from the safety of the council chamber, wearing the brilliant red robes of a councilor of Gallifrey. It reminded her so much of the Dalek Wars on Earth, yet even those terrors were nothing compared to the sheer devastation before her. Though she had spent the majority of her life away from Gallifrey, to see it now brought tears to her eyes.
"Susan, it's time."
Turning away from the viewscreen, Susan faced the Time Lord on the other side of the empty chamber. She nodded and followed him.
"Gallifrey will fall," he'd said and upon meeting the Visionary, she'd confirmed it.
"Gallifrey will fall into ash and fire and the sky will grow dark and all will be consumed by the silence," the Visionary had said. "The Time Lords will be no more." Susan found herself thinking of her grandfather and wondered if he, too, would die. The Visionary's eyes had lit up then, boring into her own. "And yet…"
There was a machine in the next room, like an open pod that stood six feet tall. Wires trailed from it to an array of computers that Susan knew were connected to the Matrix. They'd explained it all to her, the adjustments they'd made to it and this strange machine they'd created to harness its power and siphon it into a willing vessel. The Matrix itself was on a playback loop, running through a simulation in a virtual environment. Susan caught glimpses of it on the screens.
Susan was strapped into the machine and a helmet lowered over her head so that she could see nothing except its darkened visor.
"You alright?" said a voice, the voice of the Time Lord who had originally sought her out.
"Yes," Susan said.
"Switch it on," she heard Rassilon say and suddenly the visor was awash in brilliant light.
Images bombarded her mind, a veritable data dump of sounds and sights and ideas. She breathed slowly, trying not to focus on any one vision until they all became a background drone and all she could think of was the Visionary and the words she had spoken.
"You will be the key to the resurrection of the Time Lords," the Visionary had said. "I have foreseen it. You are caught in the winds of time and fate. One day, long after the fall of Gallifrey, you will hold the means of retrieving us all who will be lost."
Susan hadn't understood what she'd meant. Even now after Rassilon's lengthy explanation, she still wasn't sure. But she had come too far to back out now.
As the world slowly rolled into night, Susan closed her eyes and dreamed of the future.
The visions had faded to rest in the depths of Susan's consciousness. Even now as she struggled across the sands, so too did she struggle to remember the things she had seen in the machine, things the Visionary had warned her of. But they were gone just as surely as if they'd been dreams.
She checked the map again. She was getting close.
"Arcadia has fallen."
Rassilon nodded to acknowledge the guard's words, his expression revealing nothing. But inwardly, despair began to set in. Arcadia, the greatest and most fortified of Gallifreyan cities, had fallen to the Daleks. The news did not bode well.
"Bring in the Visionary," Rassilon said.
"Yes, sir." The guard bowed and left the chamber.
A moment later, the Visionary appeared before him.
"You did not foresee the fall of Arcadia," Rassilon said. "Have things changed?"
"Things are always changing, governed by the whim of fate."
"Enough with your riddles, woman," Rassilon snapped. "Have they changed? Can we still depend on the girl?"
"There is darkness and silence," the Visionary replied. "I see Gallifrey attacked and I see it vanish in a ball of flame and then nothing but the stillness and the silence like unto death."
"Is that all? After what you've told us, after all our preparations, are we to be destroyed utterly?"
"Susan still holds the key to our resurrection and with it, our hope."
"And yet she must cross the ruins of Arcadia in order to escape," Rassilon said. "The place is swarming with Daleks. We should have afforded her better protection. They will kill her and kill our hopes with her."
"Unless they take her alive."
"They are not interested in prisoners."
"My Lord President, if they capture her, they will have the key. We cannot let them have such power."
"Which future is it? Does she succeed or does her capture spell our doom? Tell me!"
"The future is not fixed," she said. "It fluctuates between our hope and ruin. Even I cannot be sure which will happen."
"If they capture her, they will find the key within her mind and learn knowledge they can never possess. They will use it against more than just the Time Lords." Rassilon was torn, wanting desperately to save his planet and his noble race, but the cost of failure seemed so absurdly high.
"We cannot take that chance," he finally decided. He went to a wall panel, turned on the intercom. "Bring in the prisoner."
"My lord, you are about to throw away the only chance –"
"You yourself warned me of the dangers of this course. Arcadia had not yet fallen when you spouted your prophecies."
"You are giving up hope."
Rassilon let out a bark of laughter, though there was no amusement in his voice. "We lost hope a long time ago."
"So you would give up the possibility of survival on the fear that you will fail."
Rassilon's fist crashed into the wall panel. "Get out of here."
"You are weak, Lord Rassilon."
"I said get out!"
He closed his eyes tightly, took in a shuddering breath, and when he opened them, she was gone.
A moment later, an old man was escorted in by the guard, his hands bound before him. Rassilon took no pleasure from looking down at the man, worn down and beaten by centuries of experiences and traumas beyond even the Great Time War. The prisoner was a man broken, his eyes cold as he met the steady gaze of President Rassilon.
"I have a job for you," Rassilon said. "If you do this one thing, you are free to go."
"There is nowhere left to go," the old man replied. "I've seen it all."
Rassilon waved a hand dismissively. "Then you may do what you like. It's of no concern to me. You will listen?"
The man seemed to think it over. Finally, his shoulders slumped. "Alright. I'll listen. But then I decide whether to do it or not."
"Fair enough," Rassilon said and then told the prisoner his plan, one hastily made and born of pure desperation.
Perhaps she wouldn't need the backup after all, Susan figured as she came closer and closer to her goal, so close she could almost see the shimmer in the distance of a force field reflecting the firelight.
Her hand went to the pendant around her neck, a large metallic locket, and she smiled against the exhaustion and the pain and the sting of the heat and the smoke. She wouldn't need it now because she was going to make it. She was going to survive this terrifying night and escape this world along with the key to bringing it back.
She mustered all the strength she had left for one final run across the sand toward the base where the guards would let her in and they'd see to her wounds and give her food and then a TARDIS to take her away. Latching onto those thoughts, she forced her legs to carry her on and though she fell many times, she always got back up.
The lights from the base were just visible when she fell again to the sand. By now the fighting was behind her, and she was well and truly safe.
She looked up and there was a man standing before her, his silhouette dark against a darker sky. In one hand, he held a staser, a deadly weapon only given to the council guards. Squinting at his face until she could make out some detail, she saw he was old, his hair probably gray, lines etched deeply across his face. His eyes were dead and set under heavy, harsh eyebrows. He had changed so much and yet, to her own shock, she knew who he was, though she did not recognize what he had become.
"What are you doing here?" Susan asked, her voice raw from the dust and smoke.
The man continued to look down at her, expressionless. "It works, you know. That thing in your head. The key that Rassilon foolishly put there."
"That's good, isn't it?"
"Arcadia has fallen."
Behind Susan, the city still burned. "I'd noticed," she said.
"Put old Rassilon into quite a panic," the man continued. "He's afraid the Daleks will get to you before you ever reach that TARDIS. He's afraid they'll get into your mind, find what he put there. He ordered me to kill you."
"And you'd do it, would you? On his command, you'd obey like some pet. That's not you."
"Oh, it's not? I'd forgotten, but I think you're right. Still, I'm here, so might as well."
"It's not over yet," Susan said. "The base is just ahead. I can make it. I can escape and ensure the future of Gallifrey."
"I know," the man said, his voice now barely above a whisper. "But I'm not doing this for Rassilon. I am apart from the Time Lords. I no longer follow their rules." He lifted the staser so that it pointed at Susan. "I've found Gallifrey. With that key in your head, I released it from its pocket universe. In all my two-thousand years, that was the worst mistake I have ever made."
"I…I don't understand. After all that's happened, I'd thought you would want this."
"I did. For years, I felt the burden of guilt over the loss of Gallifrey and my part in it. I tried so hard to forget. Then I was shown the truth. That in the height of the war, I acted and I saved Gallifrey and while the entirety of the war was time-locked, the planet itself was hidden away into its own little pocket of space, its own universe. I thought I was in the right when I went in search of Gallifrey and finally brought it back. But I was wrong, so wrong."
"What happened?"
"I lost everything that was worth saving," the man said. "I am sorry, Susan."
A jolt of fear went through her and this man she thought she'd known so well was suddenly a stranger. What could possibly have happened to him to make him into this? What had he seen? What had happened when he'd found Gallifrey?
"That's not my real name," Susan said.
"It is the name you have always used," the man said. "Ever since you decided you wanted to stay on Earth."
Susan nodded. "It is an Earth name. But I am no longer of Earth and I think I haven't been for a long while. I am a Time Lady of Gallifrey. As such, I cast away the person I was, the person you helped to shape. No, not you. I don't know who you are."
The man looked pained, as if her words had hurt him.
"So if you're going to kill me, at least use my real name."
"I –" The hand holding the staser wavered and he tightened his grip.
"Say it."
"Arkytior," he said. "Your name is Arkytior." Saying the name was like a harsh blow to him.
"I learned much in my time here," Susan said. The dreams flashed in the back of her mind. "I have seen the future, or your past. The name means something to you."
"Arkytior means rose. That's all. It means nothing to me."
"So low you have fallen," Susan said. She reached beneath the collar of her uniform and grasped the locket, warm from where it had touched her flesh. Her last resort.
Final preparations were being made. Susan had been in the machine and now they let her rest before the journey. She was on her way to her chamber when she passed the laboratory and she spotted a strange device in there, one she'd heard of but never tried, and an idea formed…
His words scared her but did not halt her resolve. Determined to see her mission through, she snapped the locket open and felt more than saw the golden energy release into the night. She rejected it though, refused to take that part of her essence back into herself.
Go, she thought. Find a suitable host. The energy dissipated, a copy of her own essence that she had made back in the lab, carrying her consciousness and the key across the universe.
The staser was still aimed at her and she saw resignation in her aged grandfather's gaze. Behind him, she saw the lights of the base and above that, the lights of the stars. The wind had carried away the smoke and she saw the peaceful night sky and in that sky, memories of the person she had once been.
There were good memories up there.
Susan closed her eyes.
The fireworks were brilliant. Twinkling just like the stars, they snaked over the horizon and popped and burst into a fine gold dust that rained down onto the small grassy moon.
Rose lay back on the ground, admiring the work of the aliens who'd designed this display, launching them from a platform in orbit. The gold dust was warm and soft where it fell on her and it brought back memories she'd thought lost forever.
Memories of looking into the heart of the TARDIS, of seeing all of time and space, and…
She blinked, shaking the thought away. But some of those memories, persistent dreams, could not be shaken so easily. Dreams of a dark future, of a world on fire, of the shadow of a man she knew yet did not know.
Rose frowned. The TARDIS had shown her many things that day, visions that had nearly broken her. If it hadn't been for the Doctor…
But no, enough of that. She focused again on the silent display above.
After a few moments, she still felt uneasy. Turning to look at the Doctor – she still couldn't get used to this new face, this new personality – she said, "Why do you travel with companions?"
The Doctor looked at her, confused. "What do you mean?"
"I mean, you sorta just meet people and then you're like 'Come with me, we can see stuff together.'"
"Huh. I suppose it's weird when you put it like that," the Doctor said. He paused, thinking. "I suppose I just don't want to be alone."
"After what happened to Gallifrey?"
The Doctor's voice was soft. "Yeah."
Something still nagged at the back of her mind. "Did you have any family on Gallifrey?"
"I had a granddaughter."
"Wow."
The Doctor smiled. "Don't look it, do I?
"That's just weird to think about. What was she like?"
"Oh…kind, caring, independent. She married a human, you know. What I wouldn't give to see her again."
"I'm sorry, I'm prying, huh?"
"No, no, it's alright," the Doctor assured her and grinned that familiar grin just to prove it. "But between you and me, if there was a way to undo things, if there was a way to bring Gallifrey back and Susan too, I'd do it in a heartbeat. Er, pair of heartbeats."
"I'd have liked to see Gallifrey," Rose said.
"Well, like I said. If there was a way… But, there's no use in dreaming about it, is there?"